Verse 16.16

Sanskrit text, Unicode transliteration, Word-for-word and English translation of verse 16.16:

अनेक-चित्त-विभ्रान्ता मोह-जाल-समावृताः ।
प्रसक्ताः काम-भोगेषु पतन्ति नरकेऽशुचौ ॥ १६ ॥

aneka-citta-vibhrāntā moha-jāla-samāvṛtāḥ |
prasaktāḥ kāma-bhogeṣu patanti narake'śucau || 16 ||

aneka–by many; citta–anxieties; vibhrāntāḥ–perplexed; moha–of delusion; jāla–in a net; samāvṛtāḥ–caught; prasaktāḥ–excessively attached;kāma-bhogeṣu–sense enjoyment; patanti–they fall; narake–hell; aśucau–unclean.

Perplexed by many desires and anxieties, entangled in a net of delusion, and excessively attached to sensual pleasures, they fall into an impure hell.

Commentary: Sārārtha-Varṣiṇī Ṭīkā

(By Śrīla Viśvanātha Cakravartī Ṭhākura; the innermost intention of the commentary named ‘the shower of essential meanings’)

Aśucau narake means ‘in the hells such as Vaitaraṇī’ [an endless river of blood, pus and urine].

Commentary: Sārārtha-Varṣiṇī Prakāśikā-vṛtti

(By Śrīla Bhaktivedānta Nārāyaṇa Gosvāmī Mahārāja; the explanation that illuminates the commentary named Sārārtha-varṣiṇī)

Demoniac persons consider themselves to be Īśvara, the Supreme Controller, even though they are agitated by various petty anxieties and bound in a net of delusion. They even become instructors and teach their followers their own abominable conceptions: “You yourself are the Supreme Controller and you can do whatever you like. Only a fool believes in any other Controller. There is no such entity.”

These people imagine that they can manufacture a special airplane by which they can go to any higher planet. They do not have faith in Vedic sacrifices and rituals, nor in the process of bhakti. Among such demons, Rāvaṇa was prominent. He had made a plan to build a staircase to the heavenly planets so that an ordinary person could go there without performing any Vedic sacrifice. But he was killed by Śrī Rāmacandra and his plan thus thwarted.

At present, those with a demoniac disposition are endeavouring to reach higher planets in various types of spacecraft. They do not know that they are on a path of destruction. Here, the words moha-jāla-samāvṛtāḥ mean that due to the voracious nature of the tongue, a fish becomes caught in a net and loses its life. In the same way, those of demoniac nature fall into a network of delusion from which there is no escape. Thus, they meet destruction.